Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: Brain Doping, or, The Futurological Congress
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 03:06:14 -0800
________________________________________ From: Bob Frankston [bob37-2 () bobf frankston com] Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 9:11 PM To: David Farber; 'ip' Cc: dave () wilson net Subject: RE: [IP] Re: Brain Doping, or, The Futurological Congress I can’t help but sense a moral agenda. There’s no clear line between drugs to correct deficits and those that provide enhancement. There is an attempt to focus on the side-effects but these are not necessarily inevitable. Remember there often serious side-effects of not taking drugs. What I find disturbing is comparing intellectual performance with sports. In sports the focus is on a game and a level playing field. If you have arthritis you can’t take a drug to enable you to perform at all. Tough break. Why do we have the same attitude towards intellectual achievements? And why we do continue to see neurological and even behavioral issues differently than correcting physical ailments? What’s the difference between performance enhancing tutoring for the SAT and a drug that helps you focus during the exam? We shouldn’t be at all casual about drugs whether the effect is on muscles or neurological functioning. But neither should we dismiss them because there must be something wrong with taking them. Is cosmetic surgery, with its attendant risks, immoral too? What about other addictions like programming? The incremental rewards are very addictive … and when you stop you feel disempowered. -----Original Message----- From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 17:05 To: ip Subject: [IP] Re: Brain Doping, or, The Futurological Congress ________________________________________ From: Dave Wilson [dave () wilson net] Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 9:41 AM To: David Farber Cc: ip Subject: Re: [IP] Brain Doping, or, The Futurological Congress Perhaps if people talked a bit more about the risks of messing around with your wiring folks might be less inclined to engage in this sort of behavior. While I certainly don't want to give anybody who needs medication another reason to stop taking it, the permanent neurological side effects of long-term use of drugs like prozac can be pretty unsettling. Facial tics, for example, occur in about 25 percent of such users, and they can persist long after you stop taking the drug; chemically induced Parkinsons is another known longterm side effect of these selective serotonin reuptake inhibititors (SSRIs). In other words, persistent, long term use of drugs that rewire your brain for purposes other than survival -- that is, to combat profound depression, for example -- can be extremely unwise and therefore such uses need to be examined using risk analysis. Which is another way of saying you've got to be nuts to try and goose your intellect every day of your career by popping a pill; such behavior will inevitably profoundly shorten your career and has a good chance of leaving you living the rest of your very long, medically extended, life tormented with profound neurological difficulties. -dave David Farber wrote:
________________________________________
From: Rod Van Meter [rdv () sfc wide ad jp]
Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2007 11:45 PM
To: David Farber
Subject: Brain Doping, or, The Futurological Congress
Dave, for IP, if you wish...
No one in their right mind, so to speak, would expect this *NOT* to
happen. As with many things, though, it seems to be happening quite
suddenly. I'm astonished at the assertion that three-quarters of
classical musicians use them. (Of course, it's not like the use of
"performance-enhancing" drugs in music began with Keith Richards -- jazz
was certainly an earlier form of "the devil's music".) And at some
colleges, a quarter of the students have tried ADHD-related drugs.
We conduct such society-level experiments at our own peril, but this is
hardly the first...
--Rod
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-braindoping20dec20,0,5741092,full.story
Drugs to build up that mental muscle
Unlike the performance enhancers that plague athletic competitions,
brain drugs haven't provoked similar outrage.
Academics, musicians, even poker champs use pills to sharpen their
minds, legally. Labs race to develop even more.
By Karen Kaplan and Denise Gellene, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
December 20, 2007
Forget sports doping. The next frontier is brain doping.
<snip>
Despite the potential side effects, academics, classical musicians,
corporate executives, students and even professional poker players have
embraced the drugs to clarify their minds, improve their concentration
or control their emotions.
<snip>
In an article published today in the journal Nature, Morein-Zamir and
University of Cambridge neuroscientist Barbara J. Sahakian say that
clear guidelines are needed to decide what's fair. It may be reasonable
to ban the drugs in competitive situations, such as taking the SAT. But
in other cases, they wrote, people such as airport screeners,
air-traffic controllers or combat soldiers might be encouraged to take
them.
<snip>
"If there were drugs that actually made you smarter, good Lord, I have
no doubt that their use would become epidemic," Yesalis said. "Just
think what it would do to anybody's career in about any area. There are
not too many occupations where it's really good to be dumb."
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- Brain Doping, or, The Futurological Congress David Farber (Dec 26)
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- Re: Brain Doping, or, The Futurological Congress David Farber (Dec 26)
- Re: Brain Doping, or, The Futurological Congress David Farber (Dec 27)